The Meeting After the Meeting: Why Your Best Female Talent Isn't Making It to Leadership
The leadership meeting ends. Chairs scrape. Someone says "Great discussion."
And then three people stay behind.
Spoiler alert: This is where your actual succession plan gets decided. Not in boardrooms. Not in quarterly reviews. But in hallways, over coffee, and, let's be honest, probably while someone's checking their fantasy football scores.
Welcome to the meeting after the meeting. It's where careers go to thrive... or die quietly.
The Secret Society You Didn't Know You Had
Here's the thing about informal networks: they're like Fight Club, except the first rule is that nobody talks about them because nobody realizes they exist.
But they do exist. Research confirms that women are systematically excluded from informal networks where real career decisions happen. According to MIT Sloan, professional decision-making and promotion opportunities occur primarily in informal network spheres - you know, the golf course, the sports bar, the sauna where apparently the future of your organization gets mapped out between steam sessions.
Your female Head of Engineering? She's not invited to the sauna summit where the CTO casually drops, "We should probably fast-track someone to VP."
Your brilliant Product Lead? She doesn't get face-time at Saturday's golf meet-up where board-level introductions happen over gold sticks and putting greens.
Meanwhile, your competitors are sliding into her LinkedIn DMs.
Let's Talk About Bob (And Why Bob Always Gets Promoted)
You know Bob. Good guy. Solid performer. Does Bob walk on water? Not exactly. But Bob plays golf with the CFO every third Thursday.
Bob gets invited to the after-work drinks where "light conversation" turns into "So who's ready for Director-level?"
Bob accidentally bumps into the CEO at the gym and they end up chatting about the Q4 strategy for 20 minutes.
Bob's career trajectory isn't mysterious. It's just... informal.
And here's the kicker: Bob doesn't even realize this is happening. He thinks he's just "good at networking." Which, fair- he is. But the research shows that women face structural barriers to accessing these same informal spaces where Bob's career gets casually accelerated.
The Sponsorship Mirage
Now, you might be thinking: "But we have mentorship programs! We're investing in women's development!"
Cool. Cool cool cool.
But here's the difference: Mentorship gives advice. Sponsorship opens doors.
Women with sponsors are 20% more likely to be promoted than those without sponsors. Plot twist: women are 54% less likely than men to have a sponsor.
Why? Because sponsorship doesn't happen in formal training sessions. It happens in those meetings after the meeting, where someone with power says "Actually, let me tell you about Sarah. She'd be perfect for that role."
Recent data shows 73% of women who were sponsored say it significantly accelerated their careers. Yet only 45% have ever had one.
Translation: Your mentorship program taught Sarah how to negotiate. But it didn't get her invited to the executive WhatsApp group where opportunities get floated before they're officially posted.
What Actually Happens in These Secret Meetings
Let's paint a picture.
Your strategic planning session just wrapped. The formal agenda is done. Everyone's packing up.
But wait - your all-male leadership core lingers. Over the next 15 minutes:
→ The CFO mentions he's preparing someone (let's call him... Bob) for Director of Finance
→ The CTO shares "concerns" about a female team lead's "readiness" (she has an MBA and 15 years experience, but sure, readiness)
→ The COO floats a name for an upcoming board presentation opportunity
None of this goes into your talent management system.None of this gets captured in succession planning documents.And Sarah? She has literally no idea this conversation even happened.
According to research on informal networks, this is textbook homosocial behavior - people networking with people of the same gender in male-dominated fields. It's not malicious. It's just... human. And expensive.
The Math Nobody Wants to Do
Let's talk money, because nothing gets executive attention like a good spreadsheet scare.
One lost female executive: €180K+ replacement costKnowledge walking out the door: 18 months productivity gapYour empty succession pipeline: Priceless (and also terrifying)
And while you're hemorrhaging talent, companies with gender-diverse leadership teams are 25% more likely to have above-average profitability.
But sure, let's keep optimizing Bob's golf handicap.
Why Your DEI Programs Feel Like Throwing Money Into a Void
You've done the things. Unconscious bias training? Check. Leadership workshops? Check. A very expensive consultant who said "inclusive" 47 times in one presentation? Double check.
Yet somehow, your female retention numbers haven't budged.
Here's why: women's exclusion from informal networks isn't about awareness, it's about access. Your workshop taught women how to "lean in" and "speak up in meetings." Fantastic.
But it didn't get them invited to Saturday's cycling club where actual network-building happens. It didn't give them a secret code to the executive sauna. And it definitely didn't put them in the room where the meeting after the meeting occurs.
The Golf Course Glass Ceiling
Let's address the elephant on the fairway: a lot of career-making happens during activities that women are historically excluded from or not interested in, mostly both.
Golf. Fantasy football leagues. Sauna sessions. Late-night drinks that somehow turn into strategic planning sessions.
And before anyone says "Well, women can golf too!"-yes, they can. But when professional networking happens in spaces designed around traditionally male social patterns, you've created structural barriers that no amount of "just network better!" advice can fix.
It's like telling someone to climb a ladder when you've removed half the rungs and then being surprised when they don't make it to the top.
What Visibility Actually Looks Like
So what's the fix?
First: Acknowledge that the meeting after the meeting exists.
Organizations that map and intentionally support informal networks see measurably better outcomes. This isn't touchy-feely HR speak. This is social network analysis, and it works.
Second: Make sponsorship structural, not accidental.
Stop relying on Bob's golf schedule to determine who gets leadership opportunities. Research on sponsorship shows that when organizations create formal sponsorship programs with accountability metrics, promotion gaps shrink dramatically.
Third: Redesign those "after meeting" dynamics.
If the real decisions happen after the formal meeting ends, design that time intentionally. Rotate who stays. Create transparency about how names get floated for opportunities. Make informal advancement conversations... well, less informal.
The Uncomfortable Question
Who's in the room after you leave?
Who's shaping your succession plan in hallway conversations?Who's deciding which leader is "ready" based on cycling club small talk?Who's building tomorrow's C-suite in spaces half your talent can't access?
Because here's the thing: those informal networks aren't going away. They're too effective, too efficient, too human to eliminate.
But they can be redesigned.
They can be made visible. Intentional. Inclusive. And when they are, you stop losing your best women to companies that figured this out three years ago.
The Bottom Line
The meeting after the meeting isn't going anywhere.
But the question is: Are you going to keep pretending it doesn't exist while your female talent walks out the door?
Or are you going to acknowledge that some of your most important career decisions are happening in spaces designed, accidentally or not, to exclude half your leadership potential?
Because your competitors already know the answer.
And they're hiring your women.
